Folding knives are well known in the art and serve a variety of uses. Naturally, the primary purpose of the folding feature is to sheath the sharpened blade so that the knife may be carried without an additional cover or sheath and to reduce the overall length of the knife for more convenient carrying. Numerous designs of folding knives have been developed in the past, both of the locking and unlocked variety. The primary benefits of the simple, non-locking foldable knife are its simplicity and economy, since there is only one moving part, the blade. However, the inability to lock the blade in its deployed position places serious limitations on the use of such a knife for purposes such as self defense and other demanding activities.
Locking foldable or retractable knives have taken many forms, including blades which slide out of the handle and lock down and pivoting blades which are released and locked by one or more buttons operated by the user. While such knives have broad utility and are available in many forms, they all suffer from one or more of the following deficiencies: unreliable operation, numerous moving parts, inconvenient operation and failure of the locking mechanism. Therefore, despite the long and continued development of folding knives capable of being positively locked in the open position, there still exists the need for a simple, reliable, strong locking and pivoting mechanism for such a knife. Another desirable feature for a folding knive is the ability of the knife locking mechanism to accommodate rotational alignment of the blade in the stored and deployed positions other than 180.degree. positions. Many of the knives currently available are not easily adaptable to such a requirement.